So Shed the Darkness
by firstForward
Summary: Yuugi is attacked, and Atem is intent on making the assailant pay for his crimes. His solution is Bakura, sent from the afterlife to the living world. For this duty, Bakura is offered a reward no one could rightly refuse.


So Shed the Darkness

Little bits of gravel were wedging themselves in-between his heel and the back of his shoe, creating mild discomfort as he ran and giving him a slight distraction from the massive explosion behind him.

Just a slight distraction.

Heat washed over him, even as far ahead as he was, skidding around a corner and shouting out in surprise as chipped and whole _bricks_ were flung overhead and smashed into the wall of the store across from him. Yuugi ducked his head, squeezed his fingers into fists, and put on a burst of speed despite the blisters forming on his feet.

Smoke was wafting through the air now, dark grey and orange and black, but Yuugi was determined to outrun it. His chest was expanding and contracting at a rate that made it painful to breathe, and he was feeling the throbbing ache in his sides that demanded he slow down and stop, but bricks were still clattering to the pavement behind him and he knew that he didn't have the time to care about his body's condition.

Patrons from a local video rental store were rushing out to see what all the commotion was about, and Yuugi was out of breath from running, but concern immediately overrode all his exhaustion and he gave a shout. "Get back into the store! Get out of the way!" He waved his arms in a frantic gesture in an attempt to get them to realize the seriousness of the situation. They were in danger if they just stood still like that. But aside from a few odd glances, Yuugi was not paid attention to, and in frustration he gave up.

Bolting across the street instead of through the onlookers, Yuugi jerked his head around briefly and hoped that the enemy wouldn't think to stop and terrorize anyone. Hopefully in its haste to catch him it wouldn't hurt anyone else. His arms pumped, his feet scraped against the gravel in his shoes, and then Yuugi caught sight of the shuddering mass skittering out of the smoke.

The green carapace of the scorpion was dirtied and blackened from smoke and flame, but other than that it appeared unharmed, which made Yuugi curse his luck before turning his head around again to look in front of him. His legs just could not move fast enough, to out-run something with far more legs than him, so he needed to think of somewhere that he could go and be safe, until he figured out how to deal with the monster trying to kill him.

As he rushed down a street familiar to him, he realized that he'd gotten far too close to his home for comfort, and needed to backtrack or switch roads before he endangered his family. Switching back to the other side of the road, Yuugi's fast beating heart nearly skipped a beat at seeing the scorpion snap back its stinger and dash forward. It was poised to attack, and was gaining on him.

There: an alley he knew rather well. Such a small space would force the creature to take a different route, surely.

Yuugi had just passed under the overhang of the roofs from neighbouring buildings when the scorpion caught up to him. He didn't hear the screams of the people on the street, short and far less dramatic than one might expect —for this was Battle City, and its population had faced more than a few monsters in its time. He didn't hear the scraping of the monster's claws across the tiles of the roof, nor the shattering of said tiles onto the sidewalk. He didn't even hear the sirens, blaring, as fire trucks reached the scene of the explosion a few blocks away. What he did hear was something far quieter, and far more frightening, and it caused him to freeze as the scorpion attempted to destroy the roofs and outer walls of the buildings in order to get at him.

"Magic card, set! Equip spell! Increase the attack and defence of my 8-Claws Scorpion!"

_Oh, no._

What flashed into life strapped on top of the scorpion's back only added to his fear, but thankfully it managed to shake him out of his frozen state. Yuugi turned and continued running down the alley.

"Laser Cannon Armor! Fire!"

Tripping around the next corner, Yuugi slid into a clean dive and watched in a detached sort of awe as a laser beam made a hole out of the concrete ground not ten feet away from his prone position. He vaguely wondered how deep the hole was, and then came to his senses with a snap of his head, and scrambled up onto his hands and knees, half-clutching his side as his muscles ached. He gasped loudly; air was just not coming into his lungs fast enough. It seemed like as much as he filled his lungs, his body still strained for more oxygen, and he felt almost dizzy from the lack of it.

But there was a clean hole through_ solid concrete_ and he quite simply did not have _time_ to feel out of breath. So he kept running.

The insect duel monster didn't have the height nor the climbing skills to manoeuvre itself onto the rooftops in order to follow him, so it made the smart decision and skittered away, following the path its master ordered it to take. Yuugi would have precious minutes to find a place to hide. Perhaps not even that long, because of the incredible speed of the creature.

Sprinting down more twists and turns in the alleys, Yuugi reached a more open space where across a street in the midst of newer buildings rested a run-down warehouse. All Yuugi cared about was that it was unlocked, empty of people, and so it would hide him for a while at least, while he regained his strength.

A single door in the side of the building led inside, and Yuugi slammed it closed before grabbing the nearest wooden boxes and other junk and piling it up in front of the door. He knew it wouldn't do any good should the scorpion come by and sense him inside, but it gave him some comfort to bar the entrance, nonetheless.

Everything ached, and finally Yuugi allowed himself to collapse to the blackened ground, staring out at the rubble of a dueling arena that still resided in the middle of the space.

He longed to just solve the problem of the scorpion with his own monsters, with his own deck at his belt, but the thing roaming around outside was no hologram. It was real. And he could not bring creatures to life through magic like the duelist outside. That had been his Other Self, who could command what he liked into reality. So Yuugi found himself rather helpless.

A small, miserable cry left his throat as he dropped his head into his hands and panicked quietly.

"Atem, I wish you were here. You would know what to do..."

xXx

Far away and yet close by, in a plane of existence lying parallel to Yuugi's own, a man looked down on the scene in Domino City from his perch on a ledge of a balcony surrounding a palace. He was clothed in gold and fine linen, and had the attention of several attendants all prostrated behind him, who tentatively peeked out from behind their arms to almost see the pulsating aura of red surrounding the man on the ledge.

Below him in the scene in the air and beyond it, a sorcerer of some skill searched for and found Yuugi Mutou and demanded a duel for the god cards. Yuugi's refusal prompted the man to call forth a duel monster into existence, to trap and threaten the keeper of the god cards. Yuugi didn't deserve them, the man had then said, because Yuugi was but a duelist and did not have any skill with real magic. And if he were to be proved wrong, well then so be it. But Yuugi, although he was quite familiar with magic and duel monsters springing up out of their card confines, had relied on a spirit to work the magic of the Puzzle he'd once possessed. He himself had no skill of his own in demanding the cards come to life. So he had fled.

Sitting on the balcony, back so straight that there could have been an iron rod stuck to his spine, the man on the ledge watched the scene unfold below him and only grew more and more tense. His jaw clenched. His eyes stared unblinkingly into the air below him, at the city below him. And so this man, who was not a man at all, watched a duelist whose greed knew no bounds, whose selfishness caused him to care nothing for the people he endangered, repeatedly attack the bearer of the god cards.

The attendants behind him were there for a number of reasons, each coming through the archway to the balcony at different times. All had some request or some offer for the man on the ledge, but he would have none of it and had demanded their absolute silence. He would not be disturbed.

When Yuugi dropped to the ground in the warehouse and called out his name, that was when he finally stood up. He'd had enough.

The one who had so dared to harm Yuugi would suffer severe consequences for it. For he had trespassed onto Atem's heart.

"Your majesty...?" One attendant called out in confusion, at seeing him move.

Glancing over his shoulder briefly, he murmured, "I will return."

And then Atem —god and king and duelist and dear friend of one Yuugi Mutou— stepped off of the ledge.

Space warped around him as he fell through dead air, and his senses assaulted him with a barrage of information: the stone of the palace walls, swirling upward and outward; the heat of the sun; the smell of dry air and dust. Colours melted into one another, blue and yellow and brown and white.

He fell, and at the same time he did not fall at all, and all at once the warped space of melted colours and hot air and dust vanished, leaving him standing in a the middle of a street paved with dirt and blood.

_Paved_ was perhaps not even the correct word for the soaked street. _Ingrained_ might have done it better justice, but as it was Atem was looking at less of a street and more of a red canvas of destruction. He breathed out air that was clean if not dry, from his lungs, and breathed in air whose every molecule had attached to it the smell and taste of carcasses.

There were bones at his feet.

Carefully, in sandals better suits for a dryer, harder surface, Atem walked forward. All around him were stone houses, little wooden lean-tos and pens for animals. A lot of it was destroyed, of course, on top of the destruction of the living things, which were no longer living and far too entrenched into the ground and in pieces that he doubted that they could be considered once part of living beings at all.

He would have felt sick, if he did not have purpose and duty and knowledge to guide him through the filth. He would have felt weak in the knees and disturbed and highly upset, if he did not know that there was a single thing amidst it all which was not in ruins.

With short breaths, he paced onward.

There was a small well further down the street that he could see somewhat clearly, with a smashed bucket nearby on the ground that further solidified the idea of what he was seeing. Draped over the well was a pile of bones, very meticulously gathered as if someone had spent the better part of a day picking through dirt with bloodied fingers to unearth femurs and jaw bones.

Not letting his eyes stay focussed on the pile for longer than a fraction of an instant, but nonetheless getting the full picture of it, Atem concentrated his gaze on the lump of a figure sitting behind the well. Approaching it, breaths still short and feet still stepping delicately, he stopped a few feet away and studied the figure.

There rested Bakura, Bandit King, sitting cross-legged on the ground with his brilliant red cloak pulled tightly shut over his chest. The hood was over his face, but Atem recognized him just the same.

Maybe it was the thousands of years he'd spent as an enemy of the Pharaoh, but Bakura, though Atem had not made any great noise in approaching him, raised his head and stared straight into his eyes.

He started to laugh, low and viciously. "Of course. Of course!"

Wary and uneasy, and determined to breathe evenly, Atem said in a low tone, "You are not surprised by my presence here."

Eyes glinting, Bakura let a wide grin spread across his face. It was a mad sort of expression, devoid of any happiness and fully showcasing his white teeth. He grinned and laughed and stared in dark amusement at Atem. "Didn't you know, Pharaoh? The nightmare would not have been complete without you," Bakura returned easily. His wild eyes read only the truth, and Atem could only feel sadness at the thought that his being there was only adding to the horrors that Bakura was experiencing.

"I am not here to add to your pain, to your experience in the afterlife," Atem tried to say soothingly.

For the single moment that he had let his guard down, feeling pity for the thief sitting at his feet, Bakura leapt up and tackled him to the ground. Blood slicked through his hair, and his hands came up, hard, acting as a futile barrier in-between their bodies.

Bakura gripped his shoulders and drove his head down against the dirt, and used his knee to push Atem's diaphragm out of his gut. Gasping out, Atem's first thought was to call forth magic, to strike back —but then he looked into the hard eyes of his enemy, and reconsidered fighting back.

Because Bakura was gasping too, teeth scraping against his tongue, eyes blinking out sweat that could only have been there from strenuous exercise beforehand.

The pile of bones, against the well.

Going very still, Atem waited for Bakura to stop trying to smash his head into the ground and after a few dizzying, painful blows, eventually the thief stilled. Silence stretched between them. Uncertainty flashed across Bakura's face.

"You're not an illusion," the thief muttered cautiously.

Blinking up at him, startled, Atem answered back, "I am the real thing, Bakura." There was another moment of silence then, of them just staring at each other, before Atem broke it again. He tugged at the wide sleeves of the red cloak, speaking in a quiet, careful tone. "You are going to get off of me, now."

Slowly, Bakura backed up, sitting again with his back to the well, staring at him still. Not daring to take his eyes off of him, lest he actually vanish before his eyes and prove himself an illusion in spite of what he'd said. "Lost souls have trespassed into my personal afterlife before," Bakura told him coolly. Atem got to his feet, not bothering to try and brush the mess out of his hair, his clothes. He'd only end up getting more covered in it, probably. "They were all devoured by Ammit."

Atem gave him a tired look. "I am a god, Bakura."

Bakura just stared. Atem stared back.

Then, a grumble. "Fine, so you don't have to worry about getting eaten. If you're not lost," he took on a sneer colder than his sudden glare, "and you're not an illusion to torment me, then you had better start explaining yourself quickly before I decide to trap you here to...enjoy...my afterlife with me."

Though the threat was issued with absolute certainty and seriousness, Atem did not believe it for even a second. For as he stood there, looking at him, it occurred to Atem to stop seeing the form of the thief as he was, and look beyond the skin to the soul of the man underneath.

Past the dark skin, the harsh white hair, the red cloak stained with dirt and blood. Past the muscles, the bones, the soft organs. Past the body that he had been given in his afterlife, something not quite so physical that it could have been used on a living plane of existence, but just real enough to breathe and beat and move for him on a dead plane.

There, his soul. Bitten raw to the edge of nonexistence. Barely hanging on.

Ammit had been chewing on more than just the occasional wanderer in the village.

"I have need of you," Atem said simply, causing Bakura to narrow his eyes.

"Lies."

Atem bent down to his level. "I would offer you a chance to leave this place. To finally put this behind you, and join your village in a peaceful afterlife."

Sitting in blood, Bakura leaned back into the hard stone of the well, where on the other side rested the bones of the dead. He did not look inclined to move. "Speak nothing of offers when you have not yet told me the price. And I have no doubt that it is steep."

Tense at the fleeting thought that Bakura would lash out at him at any moment, Atem said darkly, "I would have you take spirit form once more, briefly, and sent to Domino City."

An aggressive, violent pain was taking up more space in Bakura's thoughts than anything else, the sort of pain that drowned out all other aches. It caused him to see things in a sort of mild haze, a fog of near-unconsciousness that had him desperately clinging onto the things in the world around him to try and hang on. Atem's voice was deep and measured, controlled, and it was reassuring if nothing else that he was something constant and was probably not about to disappear on him anytime soon.

Through the bleariness of pain, he listened to the tone of the man who was more real than the bones and the blood, and bit back another laugh as he heard the demand.

"Someone hurting one of your friends, down in the living world, Pharaoh?" He mocked.

The hard look Atem gave him made him start.

"Ah...your vessel, then..."

Atem was _furious_.

He didn't know why it had taken him so long to realize that. No, he did. Rather, he didn't want to acknowledge that he was closer to disappearing into nothingness than he would have liked, and was having trouble thinking clearly. So he backtracked, once he had learned this, and asked what he should have asked before their discussion on Atem's need for him had even started. "What possible use do you have for me, when anything you might need to accomplish you could do yourself? Why me, when you could simply go down to the living world yourself?"

"It is not that simple!" Atem snapped at him, making Bakura raise an eyebrow in amusement. But his mouth was curled mildly in distaste. The momentary loss of control of Atem's emotions was quickly reigned back in with a breath. "When we separated, we realized that we no longer had need of each other. My memories were reclaimed, and he did not need me to fight his battles anymore. I have to show my support of him, by leaving him alone. By trusting that he will be strong enough to get through this. But while he struggles to overcome his weaknesses, in the meantime, his life is in danger."

Bakura did not seem to be able to get comfortable. He dropped his forehead to his knees, then changed his mind and rested the back of his neck against the edge of the well. His hands switched from lying on his knees to crossing themselves over his chest. "So you're going to go back on your beliefs that you need to stay out of his affairs, tell me to go down and sort things out, all without letting him know?" He sighed roughly in exasperation. Atem scowled at his words.

"I know him better than anyone. He _needs_ me to do something." He asked me to help him, however unintentionally, however implied, Atem thought determinedly.

"So clingy," Bakura mocked with a cruel laugh.

Gritting his teeth, Atem returned, "For this one small act, I will release you from this punishment, Bakura. You have suffered long enough, and Yuugi has taught me something that perhaps you do not deserve. That is forgiveness. You have died, and I am willing to grant you a final resting place. In return for my peace of mind."

Reaching forward with one hand, Bakura grasped the front of Atem's shirt and dragged him forward. Atem clamped both hands onto his wrist. "And what happens when he gets in trouble again? And again? What then? You either break, give in, go down to the living world yourself to discourage any violence against him. Or you send me in your place, hiding behind a half-baked promise to yourself that you would finally let him go and grow on his own. You're pathetic." He decided.

"This will be the only time that he needs my help!" Atem stated firmly, utterly convinced of it.

He really was angry, to have been tolerating the blood, the rough grasp of Bakura's hand in his shirt. There was some portion of Bakura's mind that enjoyed the fact that he was seemingly in control of the situation, that it was his word that would dictate whether Atem would be directly or indirectly involved with the situation in the living world. But there was another, larger portion that knew the truth behind the lies he tried to tell himself. That was aware of how desperately he wanted out of his torment, to be clinging so tightly onto the healthy soul in front of him. Bakura fumed, hating him. Hating the world around him. Hating himself.

Why did the Pharaoh have to be so ridiculously adamant that he was doing the right thing? So selfish about demanding things of the dead to fulfill his concerns over some mortal he'd left behind years ago? How dare he intrude on Bakura's afterlife, his village, and offer him something he couldn't refuse?

How the thief lived out the rest of eternity was in Atem's hands, and he knew this. He could have removed him from his apparitions and the village, from the path of the demon Ammit, at any time he chose, but it had not occurred to him until now to mess in the affairs of what had been decided for the soul of the thief by gods far more ancient than him. But Atem was a god too, and Bakura's soul belonged to him, for the war that he had inflicted upon him, for the things that he had done. So he would use him as he wished, and it was his desire to see him put to use rather than wasting away into nothingness in the ruins of the village.

Bakura would save Yuugi, and then return to the planes of the dead, and that's all there was to it.

They looked at each other, and as well as they knew each other could almost hear the thoughts of the other. "You bastard." Bakura said eventually.

"Go," Atem said calmly, but his face was gripped with his anger for Yuugi.

The thief got to his feet shakily, ignoring the stabbing pain from his soul that insisted he didn't have legs to stand on. Atem stood as well.

He was suddenly in the centre of a vortex of red-brown-grey, senses all clamouring for attention as Atem's form faded from view. That did not stop the Pharaoh's voice from reaching him, somehow. "Be warned. Your enemy is a sorcerer."

Smells of blood and dirt and death all twisted into something unrecognizable, and colours warped into a mash-up of something too ruined to make out. His ears popped, and he suddenly had trouble figuring out whether he was standing or doing a handstand. But he found his voice and grated out, "And what should be done with him, your majesty?" His tone was contemptuous, so bitter, even after all Atem was giving him.

"The sorcerer..." Atem murmured thoughtfully, as Bakura both spun and stood still, slipping through a hole in the very fabric of space itself. He gave the thief a cold look, though he likely could not see it. His voice managed to carry the expression on his face, though. "Destroy him."

The last he saw of Bakura was the glint of his teeth, as his lips peeled upward into a smirk.

xXx

His first thought, after coming out of the disorienting swirl of the warped space, was how destroyed his astral form was. Bakura looked down at his transparent arms, half chewed off and lacking a good portion of his hands. He was also missing a lot of fingers. His clothing was shredded to the extent that it would have been easier to say that he was wearing nothing at all, which didn't particularly matter seeing as how his form wasn't all there to clothe anyway. There was also the matter of having no legs.

Frowning, he floated in the middle of the street where Atem had left him, and tried to think his soul into being better, willing it to heal and allow him to produce a better and more accurate astral form. The one he currently had said very little about the soul it represented.

Or perhaps it said everything.

Abandoning the line of faulty reasoning that he could imagine himself a more complete spirit body, he looked up and took in the sights of the city with eyes that were probably partially destroyed too, if Bakura cared to think about it. Across from him rested a warehouse, one he remembered very clearly as a place that he had been in before. But the vision that captured his attention the most was the large and rather green scorpion skittering down the asphalt. Behind him, walking casually and in a confident manner, was a man with a deck of cards in one hand. His target.

He really was bold, to be so direct with his attacks. Bakura scoffed at the obviously poor planning. His methods would have been better.

The few fingers he had fisted in the remains of his astral hair as he nearly growled in annoyance. Here he was, thinking of how much better he would have been at destroying Yuugi, and he was dead. And, on top of that, he was the one to be saving him instead. The humility of it all. The irony.

What was the point of it all, when knocking down this sorcerer would just make way for the next one? No matter what the Pharaoh tried to convince himself with, Yuugi was a target for attack. And in the end, he was going to need to defend himself without his friend the god checking in on him constantly, like an overbearing mother hen. Bakura would have to do something about this, to squash the dependency before it got too bad. But what?

His target approached him in the centre of the street, the scorpion several metres in front of him and slowing its pace as it drew closer. Bakura glared down the creature —so pitiful and not even worth his time— and it sensed him, flexing its stinger in confusion. The presence of Bakura was minimal, at best, as destroyed as his soul was. But nonetheless, he had a duelist's aura. A sorcerer's aura. And to the duel monster, that meant danger. Or another target.

The man who had summoned the creature caught up and glanced around with some impatience, blind to what the scorpion knew was in the area. Bakura nearly laughed as he remembered the Pharaoh's warning. Then the man's gaze fell on the warehouse, and he grinned a little, muttering aloud, "Hey, there's a thought. He could be hiding in there."

There wasn't much time now, as the man mulled over the decision of commanding his creature to slice open a way inside, or blow the place apart with the laser. Bakura floated right over the carapace of the scorpion, having come to a quick decision. Standing just behind the stinger, the man opened his mouth to speak out an order. And Bakura thought, I have some use for you...

He slipped inside his body.

A pained and shocked scream was cut out before it fully exited his mouth, as Bakura had anticipated the reaction and had done this more than a few times before. The previous owner of the body was pushed aside into unconsciousness, as Bakura wormed his way through the mind of the man and made a space for himself in the confines of the physical form. Inside their now shared mind, a second mind room had formed, though Bakura did not plan on staying long enough to care about it.

Bones creaked and muscles stretched as the ancient ghost tested the new form, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders back. The body itself seemed in pain, aching, almost. It was having trouble accepting the second soul, partial though it was. It attempted to reject Bakura, who simply settled himself in further and clamped a firm hold onto the original soul in the body. He had need of a physical form, and wasn't about to be pushed aside by some amateur magician.

Bakura tested the man's voice with a cough before saying aloud, "Fire, through the middle of the warehouse."

And the scorpion obeyed.

A burst of light lit up the streets, and shot straight through the metal of the warehouse wall, and Bakura busied himself with going through the deck that had been in the man's hand while he waited for the blinding glare to wear off and let him see things in the distance a little more clearly.

The catastrophe of insects and beast-warriors in the deck was enough to have Bakura grinding his teeth, but it seemed that the spells and traps were sufficient enough for his purposes, so it would have to do. With any luck he would not need to use the cards at all, save for the scorpion.

He looked up at the snapping noises the scorpion was making with its claws, and saw that the laser had not only made a large hole in the front side of the warehouse, but the back side as well. He could see all the way through to the street behind the structure. It was likely that the Pharaoh's vessel had run out through the hole in the back, leaving him to chase after him. Sparing another glance at the cards in his hand, Bakura waved the scorpion onward. "Drive him back towards me. Fire if you must, but not to kill."

For all the difference in his strategy from the scorpion's former master's, somehow the insect did not even notice the change in attitude. It launched itself forward, leaving the street for a side road up ahead to engage the enemy as ordered. Bakura backed himself into an alleyway and was appreciative of an apparent fire down the street, or his battle with Yuugi would have had more interruption from authorities.

Leaning against the cool wall of the building, Bakura began ironing out his plan for when Yuugi appeared once more on the street.

xXx

It was starting to bother Yuugi severely, that he had not had any near hits since leaving the warehouse. Every time the laser fired, he found that he was given ample room to switch directions, keeping himself from any real danger. The scorpion itself was not moving at top speed, and as he had been chased by the monster for quite a while now he knew a thing or two about how fast it could move. Its current speed was certainly not it. Yuugi was too tired to think properly, and too stressed to fully consider the implications of the rather subdued movements of the monster behind him, but he did have the strong desire to get away from the thing. And so that kept him going.

It was to his relief that the streets were incredibly empty, as by now word had gotten around the area that there was a monster loose on the streets. Shops were closed up tight; doors were barred. It would have been soothingly quiet had he not been running from a giant creature that looked like it better belonged in a corny black and white horror film than in Domino City. Such was his life.

Aching, panting, Yuugi stumbled back onto the street he had left several minutes ago. The thought flashed through his mind that he really should have considered the idea that the scorpion was choosing the path he would take, and mild surprise crossed his face for a moment as he realized that his enemy was a little smarter than he'd taken him for.

He settled into a full stop, with the scorpion coming to a halt behind him, blocking his exit. Some distance away stood the man who'd hunted him down, shuffling his cards and eyeing him thoughtfully. The confident look that had been present earlier was for some reason gone from his face. Instead in its place was a look that read careful planning and deliberation.

Yuugi found himself uneasy on top of his fear, suddenly. "I'd heard so much about the so-called King of Games," said the man with a sigh, shrugging his shoulders in disappointment. Yuugi straightened his back and tried desperately to catch his breath. "Yet all I see before me is a helpless child, running away from a creature that he should have been able to beat."

"You wanted that duel for the god cards," he returned haltingly, for lack of air. Waving his arms at the destruction of the warehouse, the massive insect behind him, he yelled out, "Fine, all right, already! I knew I couldn't ever offer those cards as a prize, because of what they mean to me, but I'm sure I'll win so I'll make an exception. Duel me, and stop putting people's lives in danger!"

The man grinned briefly. "Forget the duel. What I want is a battle, Yuugi. High stakes. Real danger. You're concerned for the people who could be caught in the crossfire —so be it, then. Summon a beast stronger than my 8-Claws Scorpion," he provoked. And protect them, Yuugi thought. He's telling me to stand up for what I believe in, and stop him? If not for myself, then for the people who could be hurt by him? Was that a challenge? He didn't know.

The familiar sound of the shuffling cards filled his ears then, calming him to some extent. Making him forget for the moment about the creature behind him that could have sliced him into pieces so small he would have been indistinguishable if not for a dental record.

...Good thoughts only, Yuugi told himself firmly.

Wetting his lips, Yuugi croaked out, "Real...monsters? But I..."

"If you can summon nothing to defend yourself," his enemy shrugged casually, ceasing his shuffling, "then you will die."

Fingers flicked at the creature behind him, so Yuugi jerked his head around to see what the man had been gesturing the scorpion to do. He nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of the stinger, jamming down towards him with all the force of a giant sledgehammer. Only sharp.

Not bothering to waste his breath on a shriek of shock, Yuugi threw himself to the side, grunting at the pain lancing through his abdomen as his ribs hit asphalt. The stinger slammed into the ground where he had been standing, making a ruin of the road and sending chunks of the stuff flying in several directions. He would have tried to get to his feet, only Yuugi had landed in just the right position to see another hand flick gesture from the scorpion's master. So instead he pushed his hands under him and rolled, hard, in the opposite direction of the stinger.

There was a sound like a rubbing of rubber stamps against each other, and a rush of air, as the stinger flexed upward again before driving downward. Yuugi kept rolling.

Slam. Another miss.

Chunks of asphalt snapped into his shoulders, his lower back, forcing more air out of him and heavily bruising his already stressed body. Yuugi didn't dare to slow down.

Another sound spread through the air of the carapace of the stinger stretching and contracting, moving the poisonous end in an arc to face Yuugi's new location. I can't keep going like this! Yuugi thought desperately. Things would be so much easier, if this were a duel, if I could just summon a stronger monster to attack and remove it from the field...

Slam. This time the stinger hit so incredibly close that Yuugi heard his shirt rip amidst the sound of the ground smashing apart just inches from his face. He cried out, aloud and in his mind, if only his friends and his Other Self and the Puzzle were there—

But they're not, Yuugi thought to himself dismally, as the scorpion pulled its stinger back again, but not fully, aiming directly for him. I only have myself here, and no one else. There's no one who's going to get me out of this, so thinking about all of the things I don't have aren't helping matters any. He listened to the cracking of the road underneath him, as dust and dirt and broken asphalt shifted down into the hole made by the scorpion.

His limbs and lungs and heart and legs were all screaming at him; go to sleep, you're exhausted, Yuugi. This is such a ludicrous situation anyway. It's likely it's all just a dream, isn't it? So just fall back asleep and forget about it. And Yuugi wanted so badly to listen to that.

But his mind was screaming too. His duelist's instincts, his will to live. His drive to do something amazing with his life, to do what he wanted to do in the future.

_Fight back fight back fight back..._

One hand dropped down, finally, finally, to the deck holder at his belt. Yuugi snapped open the holder and drew the first card in the deck, knowing with all his heart that the card spirits would respond to him. The heart of the cards that had been with him from day one.

He shouted as hard as he could, willed it as strongly as he could believe, for the spirit of the card to listen to him. "Dark Magician! I summon you! Come forth, ready to offend!"

And so Yuugi Mutou, chosen vessel of the Pharaoh Atem, called forth magic for the first time on his own. Air split before him, darkness spewed out from under him. His blood boiled, as sharp and almost painful energy shocked through his system, more quickly than he could keep up with. All his strength left him, as the card in his hand shuddered before it was struck with his energy flow. Then all of a sudden there was a blinding light, and...

The stinger of the scorpion came down, with a snap.

There was a splitting sound of the hard force of the stinger being met with an equally hard force, and Yuugi dropped his hand down to his aching chest and blearily blinked his eyes, willing them to stay open, if even for just a little while longer. What he thought he could see above him both reassured and relaxed him, as his eyelids slid shut and he fell into oblivion.

What he'd seen was the faint outline of a man in violet robes, holding a long staff raised to brace against the scorpion's stinger.

xXx

Bakura looked across at the Magician hovering protectively over his fallen duelist master, where all around him blood was splattered from the destruction of the Scorpion. Not one bit of the substance had stained the Magician's robes, nor gotten on Yuugi, and Bakura scowled at the thoughtfulness of how the monster had directed his attack. So deliberate and careful, about everything he did.

Authorities were finally making their way to their position, and if the loudness of the sirens was any indicator, they would be on the street within a minute. This was no time to be dallying around. He gave one last hateful glance at the Magician, and the carcass of the insect sprawled out behind him. Then Bakura turned his gaze inward, to his mind.

The original soul shifted eagerly as he felt the intruder release his hold on him, carefully dislodging himself from the body. Organs squelched against each other as the partial soul dragged himself out of the physical form, detaching his mind from the brain along the way.

But there was one duty to carry out, that he had to fulfill if he wanted any of the gifts that the Pharaoh had offered him. One order, and he could be off.

So Bakura, with the waning grasp that he had on the brain of the sorcerer, gave one final order to the body, and pulled himself free.

There was a hard crack as the head smashed into the ground below, twisting the neck unnaturally. The body fell limp and was silent.

Bakura stretched his astral form and gave another look at the scene, which the Magician had seemingly disappeared from, presumably back into his card. An ambulance and several cop cars were making their way up the street, so with a satisfied nod Bakura looked skyward.

Seconds later, he had disappeared into a vortex.

xXx

He'd lost his flats somewhere several dunes behind him, and was now trekking through some very mucky ground, but he'd ceased to care the moment his bare feet had met cool mud. The sensation was so utterly refreshing and pleasing that he'd laughed aloud, picking up his pace into a run, and had marvelled at the change in scenery as he'd dashed through it.

Fields of produce, all wet with some rain that had probably just drizzled down from the skies an hour before, lay before him. They were ordered in nice neat rows, and Bakura's only bother was that none of it was mature enough to bear fruit or vegetables. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had something to eat. Not that the dead needed to eat. Still, it would have been nice.

When he came abruptly to the end of them, he frowned to see that the fields were smaller than he had expected, but after getting a glimpse of a cluster of buildings over a low hill he realized that it was enough to support the village up ahead.

Someone was walking down the slope towards him, and Bakura squinted with his hand over his eyes as he tried to make out the figure. They'd come to tend to the produce, he knew, and so probably had good knowledge of the area and could tell him where he was. For Bakura hadn't a clue.

The child, now mostly discernible, stumbled down the slope and squinted at him, too. He was perhaps around eight, naked except for a loincloth, and still had a mess of hair on the side of his head tied with a short bit of string. Bakura's mind worked through the information slowly, trying to figure out exactly why seeing the boy standing there struck a chord with him.

Stumbling down the slope was another child dressed like the first and carrying some field tools. He stopped several feet from boy in front of him and caught Bakura's gaze.

There was a panicked cry as the child released all the tools, and scrambled forward, raising a shout, "It's you, it's you!"

Bakura just stared.

The first boy jerked forward too, seemingly realizing who he was staring at, and ran straight into Bakura's knees. Two little arms gripped hard around his waist, and then the second boy made it forward, and pulled him into a hug, too.

They were _sobbing_.

"I didn't recognize you!" One said into his schenti, and Bakura struggled to make the words out. His mind was frozen, his body frozen, as he tried to figure out what was going on. "I didn't know it was you, you look so different! I didn't remember! Please forgive me!"

"Don't do it anymore!" The second one shouted up at him, and Bakura's eyes widened at the distraught look on his face. Little hands tugged hard at his cloak. "We don't need you to do it anymore, okay? Just stay here and everything will be alright again, okay, Bakura..."

The distinct Egyptian accent to his name threatened to make his gut clench and heart twist, but he only muttered, "I don't know who you are."

One of them grabbed his hands, and pulled him forward, hard. "You have to come see the others! Everyone's been waiting...for so very long..."

"I don't know who you are," he grated out.

They only cried harder. "We know we're different looking, but it'll still be the people you knew," the child said whose arms were tightly wrapped around his waist. Bakura found himself feeling lost and confused and hurt, for some reason. There seemed to be a heavy weight on his chest.

"Even though we're not ghosts anymore, you still remember us, don't you, Bakura?"

He let himself, stumbling, slowly, be pulled up the slope. As the village came clearly into view, the weight he had felt on his chest finally lifted. The children kept tugging, hard, determined not to let go of him.

Bakura walked on, feeling as if in a dream, not quite believing in what he was seeing. But it was all so different from his nightmares, and his memories, that somehow it could not be untrue.

The children pulling him into the streets were yelling at the other villagers.

"It's Bakura, it's Bakura!"

"Come out, come see, he's finally back!"

I remember you now, thought Bakura, to the child with his arms around his waist. You died cleanly; a decapitation, short and quick. You died in a kitchen, blood flowing over a counter. I remember you.

The pressure around his waist, and in his hands, certainly felt real. But Bakura was caught in a daze, and as other villagers came out of their houses and gathered in the streets, he could only blink in amazement.

I remember you, he thought to the child grasping his hands, digging his nails in so hard that it would have drawn blood had Bakura not had thick skin. You died from a horse, from being trampled to death. You died with your limbs twisted in more directions than possible. I remember the fear on your face.

There was an absolute silence, as the crowd stared in shock and awe at the man standing in the middle of their village, at the man that they were certain had been devoured by Ammit. There was silent crying, as the children and the women and the men all stared in wonderment at what should have been just a dream.

Bakura met the eyes of the man in front of him who had dropped to his knees at his feet, managing to get out around his teeth, "For all the hatred we instilled in you, for the task we demanded of you, could you ever...forgive us..."

A little girl, less than five, doll in hand, broke free from the hand of her mother and tottered over to his side.

"Hi! Let's play together. 'Cause you said you would, only you didn't, remember?"

_I remember I remember I remember..._

Dozens of hands, all grasping his arms, his cloak, his waist, his back. Eyes everywhere, all staring, all illusions. No, solid. No, bleeding, dying, twisted forms—

"You don't have to do it anymore—"

Brain fluid, all leaking, mashed bodies, all crushed and burned and melting—

"We're sorry, we're sorry, you remember us, don't you?"

The thunder of hooves, the clanging of bowstrings. Clashing of steel. Roaring of flames.

"Bakura, Bakura, Bakura—"

He sucked in a shuddering breath, and very slowly, squeezed the hands of the child grasping his.

"Hey...don't cry."

xXx

It was a lion, made rather poorly, carved out of a block of wood and resting on a base with wheels. There was a little lever at the back of the wide head, which could be pushed upward to open the mouth of the wooden toy, and pushed down again to shut it. Bakura rolled the lion across the sand and sat back, watching the little girl in front of him who was digging out a pit for her crocodile. "If you're good, you can play the crocodile next," she said cheerfully.

"What if I think the lion is better?" Bakura mocked back, trying to avoid the hard edge to his tone that he would have used against people far older and more threatening than her.

"Then you're a liar," she decided.

_A liar and a thief._

"That isn't very nice," he said only.

She giggled, and pushed her crocodile up the slope, pulling the lever on its back and snapping its jaw open and closed. Bakura crashed the lion toy into hers. She gave him a little horrified look.

"I should have known that even with people you like, you still seem to have trouble socializing," droned a voice that made Bakura go very still. The little girl seemed frozen as well.

Dropping into the sand next to them, Atem gave the child a smile and said very gently, "Do you mind if I talk with him for a moment?"

Shaking her head very furiously, she jumped to her feet and ran off. Bakura scowled.

"She's been waiting over three thousand years for me to play with her," he said in a very clipped tone.

"And I would not make her wait any longer, if I did not wish to speak with you about what you did for Yuugi."

He was really wearing too much gold, but likely if he were to mention anything Atem would have seen no problem with it. Necklaces looped around his neck extensively, obviously far longer than what was necessary. Bracelets and arm bands adorned his hands and arms, barely leaving an inch of dark skin not wrapped in gold. Several rings glittered on his fingers. And around his forehead, of course, rested the crown. The Eye of Wdjat stared at him, carved into the metal. Bakura tried but could not muster up a glare, as much as he hated and fumed and felt discomfited at Atem's presence...

But there was no tensing of his muscles, nor any turning over of his stomach at the two feet of space between them. He wanted to lash out and hurt him, wanted to want to lash out, but Bakura could only stare at the Eye that warded against evil and fume and feel hollow and eventually sigh.

"You went beyond what I had asked, and did something that I could never even attempt to. You were willing to hurt him to help him grow, and I could never do something like that. Bakura, you have my gratitude. I truly feel that Yuugi will be able to become a strong sorcerer in the near future, and will be perfectly able to defend himself against any more attacks. That is thanks to you." Atem said slowly, honestly.

Bakura looked back at him, empty and at a loss for how to act. He pushed the lever up and down on the lion, feeling the smoothness of the wood under his fingertips. "All of this...?" He ventured out.

"Yours, as promised. You have adequately suffered for your crimes. Zorc is destroyed, and we are willing to grant you a new afterlife. We are not above giving second chances," Atem affirmed.

"We?" Bakura murmured cautiously.

"The other gods."

Bakura let his head roll back with another sigh. "Oh, of course. Because you're part of the bloody clique now." He returned in exasperation.

"..."

Levelling a sharp look at Atem, Bakura added, "If you don't mind, if this is my afterlife, I would very much prefer having you stay out of it. Go spy on your friends or something in the living world. Or play senet with your priests."

Atem made a face at him. "Is that all you think I do?"

Gesturing at the two wooden toys, Bakura said easily, "I highly doubt you'd engage in something so simple as just playing in the sand, at the very least." He made his face blank, and tried to appear bored with Atem being there. But the Pharaoh only reached out to the crocodile, and, watching Bakura sputter for words, rolled the wooden animal up a tiny slope and smacked the lion with it.

"She was correct in choosing the crocodile," Atem decided, as Bakura sat silent, "the lion would be poorly prepared against a fight if there was water nearby. A crocodile would lie in wait, and spring up to sink its jaws in its underbelly."

"Please don't tell me," Bakura groaned, with some horror, "that just like all the other men who declared themselves your enemy, you're trying to make amends and—"

The Pharaoh stood up in a huff, suddenly angry. "I could never be friends with _you_," he declared, and pulled back his fist, slamming his knuckles into Bakura's jaw, who was so startled that he could do nothing but be pushed back from the blow onto his back. A satisfied smirk crept up the Pharaoh's face, though Bakura had no doubt that his fingers were numb. He was certain that he'd never hit anyone before.

"What was that for?" Bakura snarled at him, getting to his feet as well and finding his anger again.

"That was for Yuugi!" Atem rebuked, firmly. Bakura started. "You put him in the hospital."

"He needed to be knocked down a few levels," he snapped back, and opened his mouth again to let out a flurry of angry retorts, but Atem interrupted him before he could get started.

Coolly, Atem said, "I do not care what you think he needed. Your plan to drive him to fight back was successful, admittedly, but he was terribly injured and I hold you accountable for that."

A sneer appeared on Bakura's face. "Going to try and make me as injured as he is?" The look he was giving Atem just screamed for him to try and hit him again, but Atem was not so easily goaded.

"No, but I have half a mind to visit you when I am bored of my spying and senet," Atem shot back tauntingly, and he grinned when Bakura's face drained of some colour.

"You wouldn't. You hate me."

Atem only stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. The silence loomed between them, making the anger drain out of Bakura. He stood there feeling empty and at a loss again and didn't like the feeling, but could not bring himself to feel any differently. Then Atem opened his mouth to bid him good-bye, but Bakura only looked at him like he didn't need to hear the words. A vortex appeared, and Atem vanished.

Eventually, after a while, the little girl who had been playing with him came back and held his hand.

He looked down at her. "I won't smash your crocodile this time," he told her after a second of hesitation.

"That's okay. I figured you just didn't know how to play properly. The crocodile has to win, okay?"

"Okay."

Bakura sunk into the sand, letting his fingers grip the wooden toy more tightly than needed, letting himself remember the feeling of being a child and playing games in the sand. He thought after a while that it wasn't so bad after all to be feeling empty and not sure of how to act anymore. Maybe he could fill up his tired and ruined soul with emotions he'd forgotten about, so that playing in the sand became something that came more naturally to him.

"Hey," he said to the girl, on impulse, "do you have those spinning tops...?"

The End.


End file.
